


One Day

by scarrletmoon



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:07:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27788716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarrletmoon/pseuds/scarrletmoon
Summary: An already sour day goes from bad to worse. Sugawara works at a coffee shop, where they just hired a new kid with a lot of enthusiasm but unfortunately prone to coffee-related accidents. Minor disaster ensues.
Relationships: Sawamura Daichi/Sugawara Koushi
Comments: 2
Kudos: 35





	One Day

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently, I started this fic in....[checks notes] February 2016???
> 
> Anyway, it's based on this prompt (which I only know because I helpfully pasted it at the beginning of the document)  
>    
>  _Person A somehow loses their sight for a day and finally realises what a nice voice Person B has._
> 
> And now here we are in 2020 the Year of the Dumpster Fire, with me posting a formally abandoned Haikyuu fic that kind of sort of not really answers the prompt.
> 
> I'm sorry in advance about the coffee bits, I've never so much as breathed near an espresso machine so I guessed a lot and just drew on my experience getting yelled at for not honoring expired coupons at work.

Koushi woke up that Tuesday, turned on his phone and realized several things at once; first, that he was running very, very late; second, he definitely had not gotten enough sleep; and third, he’d completely forgotten to do something important, but he couldn’t remember what it was. Also, Daichi still wasn’t home, which meant he was being overworked again and wouldn’t be back before Koushi left. 

As much as he wanted to write off the day and try again tomorrow, he couldn’t afford to miss work, not if he wanted to eat and afford rent at the same time. So he rolled out of bed, overestimated the drop again and landed weirdly on his knees, catching himself painfully on his hands. Then he tried to take a quick shower to wake himself up and found that the water was stone cold. He forgot his phone halfway down the stairs and had to run back into the apartment for it. The first good thing to happen that day was that he narrowly avoided missing his train. He even managed to get a seat that let him look out the window without making awkward eye contact with someone the whole way to his stop, and he didn’t forget his headphones, which made him wonder if maybe the past hour had just been an unusual bout of bad luck. 

The rest of the morning was almost pleasant, considering he’d woken up alone and his hands were still a little sore. He got to work on time and it was early enough that the people shuffling in for coffee hadn’t worked up enough energy to be their true, spiteful selves yet. He even got a few smiles in return which was rare even on a good day. Eventually, he fell into his usual rhythm, taking orders, trying to do ten different things simultaneously while pretending to be calm, making drinks on autopilot. Koushi was almost okay with the rest of his life being a mess if he at least had ten hours where the only thing he had to worry about was dropping change or getting venomous glares from middle-aged customers with better jobs and a vicious sense of entitlement. 

But then the lunch rush hit, and Koushi had to admit that he was a little nervous because they’d just hired a new kid (Kiyoko kept saying he was old enough to work there but he honestly looked like he was still in middle school). Hinata was perfectly lovely but always panicked when it came to unfamiliar situations. Around lunchtime, Koushi casually switched from taking orders to making them; it made life a lot easier, and he liked seeing the wave of relief that swept over the new ones when it turned out that they didn’t have to try and make three different frappuccinos at once while someone was howling in their ear at the drive-through. 

Yet somehow, in the five seconds it took Koushi to return with fresh milk from the back, Hinata was somehow at the espresso machine, making the first drink of the rush. And before Koushi could take over, there was already another order in the queue that had to be taken care of, he hadn’t finished refilling the ice machine and there was no way they’d survive a rush with no ice in June.

But for the first hour, it went a lot better than he anticipated. Although Hinata was obviously nervous, he was fast, didn’t panic when handed an order he’d never made before, and could follow directions from everyone else if he needed them. Koushi was starting to think that he’d underestimated the kid and needed to apologize when the crowd died down, when he caught the eye of a woman Hinata had just served and immediately knew that there was a problem. 

“This one isn’t good enough,” the woman said, slamming her drink back on the counter with her lips pursed so hard it almost made her lips disappear. Koushi had seen her out the corner of his eye while he was helping another customer. She hadn’t taken a single sip yet. 

Koushi swooped in before she could get into it with Hinata. “I’m so sorry,” he lied, already sweating through his polo. He plastered on his best Customer Service smile. “I’ll remake it right away.” He carefully ignored the glares he got from the people still waiting in line. 

The woman huffed, pushed her untouched drink across the counter, and folded her arms. “I told you exactly how much foam I wanted in this, and I expect that much. I don’t get this kind of treatment from my usual place.”

Koushi apologized again, shoved the cup into the first hands he could find behind him, gave them a look that he hoped made them understand how desperate he was to get the woman out of here before she started screaming about lawsuits like the weird tech guy from last week, and turned back to wrangling with the drive through line.

Two customers in, the woman was even angrier. 

“ _This_ one is fine,” she was telling Kuroo, who didn’t even have the energy left to look anything other than bored, “but _this_ one is a complete mess. I’m not wasting my money on this. I ordered _two_ drinks that are exactly alike. I didn’t pay you to be _disrespected_.”

Koushi wanted to butt in and let her know that technically, she wasn’t paying them at all, but he was in the middle of trying to figure out why a customer’s credit card was refusing to go through the reader. The machine kept beeping and he prayed it wasn’t broken again.

“...and I don’t want _him_ making it either,” she continued, and Koushi looked up just as she was jabbing her finger in Hinata’s direction. He blushed all the way up to his violent red hair and Koushi hated the woman even more than he already did. “I don’t know why you’re hiring _children_ to make my coffee now? This is absolutely _ridiculous_ ,” she continued, except she didn’t say “absolutely”.

At this point, every single person in the store was watching her while Hinata, still blushing furiously, fumbled with the lid of a drink he was trying to make. Koushi felt for him, he really did, but he didn’t have time to even throw him a sympathetic look when he was juggling drive-through orders at the same time and Kuroo was handling it now anyway. Koushi was sure that if Hinata made it through today, he’d be the best barista the store had had in months, especially considering their high turnover of stressed college students, high schoolers who didn’t really understand the concept of financial responsibility, people who’d been working there for too long like him-

And in between thinking this and turning back for the next order, he felt something very hot and very painful hit him full in the face.

He barely had time to process it, because suddenly everyone was around him at once (it hurt), Hinata was apologizing so hard and fast he was slurring words together and Koushi was trying to tell him that it was all right (it _hurt_ ) even though he had his eyes squeezed shut and was trying to focus long enough (it _really hurt_ ) to tell someone to take him to the goddamn hospital.

He didn’t have time to be afraid, not when he was suddenly hyper-aware of every noise around him, every pair of eyes that he couldn’t see, probably staring at him and his burned face, every part of exposed skin that the hot water had burned. And there were hospital expenses he could barely afford to pay, the fact that _he’d forgotten to pay his phone bill last night_ -

“Kuroo,” he said, flailing his arms out and hitting someone too short to be Kuroo. “Kuroo, I need- where’s the store phone? I need to call-”

“Suga, you just got blinded by boiling water, who in the name of God could you have to call right now other than an ambulance?” Kuroo said, his voice higher and so much more strained than Koushi had ever heard it. He was yelling. There was a panicked murmur in the background and Kuroo was yelling.

“I just- I need to call and say I’m okay, I forgot to pay for my phone- I mean, the bill- I just need to tell him-” He wasn’t making any sense, he was in so much pain and he was starting to hyperventilate, he was trying to get up off the floor but someone kept shushing him and pushing him back down but he had to get up, he had to call Daichi because he needed him-

“I’ll call him, okay?” Kuroo said, catching Koushi’s hands and squeezing them. He pressed something cold into Koushi’s hands - a cold damp towel. “Don’t worry. Keep still and hold that towel on your face until the ambulance gets here. Worry about yourself for once.”

Koushi opened his mouth to argue but he was cut off by the ambulance arriving, loudly and with enough lights that he could see them through his tender eyelids and under the damp cloth over his face. Or maybe he imagined the lights. Kuroo told him later that there hadn’t been any lights. 

Koushi let himself drift off after that, because it was easier than being fully awake and in pain and worrying about how concerned Daichi would be when he found out and what if Koushi was blind forever now because he hadn’t been careful enough, what if Hinata was hurt and he’d never asked, what if a customer had been hit? Koushi hadn’t even asked if they were okay-

“Easy.” There was a female voice now, soothing over the sound of the ambulance rattling around him as it raced back to the hospital. “Just breathe and don’t panic. You’re going to be fine.”

“Fine,” Koushi repeated, “I’ll be fine.” And then he was gone. 

* * *

It was too dark to see anything. 

It was so strange. He couldn’t remember falling asleep, but he knew he couldn’t have gone to bed late enough that it’d be this dark already. Plus, there was always a little light coming through the window in their room even at night, so this absolute darkness didn’t make any sense. He was too tired to lift his hands, too tired, even, lift his own eyelids…

“Suga?” 

Koushi froze. He definitely knew that voice, but it was different somehow. It didn’t sound right in the room they were in, almost as if there was too much space for the sound to move around in. 

“Suga?” the voice said again, and a hand slipped into his. “Can you hear me?”

Koushi’s lips were so dry that he had to force them apart. When he spoke, it was with a voice that was still hoarse. “Where am I?”

“The hospital,” Daichi said softly. There was a screech as he shifted closer. “You got burned at work, do you remember that?”

Koushi’s hand began to shake, and Daichi squeezed tighter. “I’m right here, sweetheart,” Daichi soothed, and the bed dipped as he moved to sit on the edge of the mattress. “You’re okay.”

“My eyes…” he tried to say, but he was panicking again and couldn’t get the words out.

“It’s not permanent,” Daichi said, rubbing circles into the back of Koushi’s hand. “It’s mostly your eyelids that got hurt and the bandages are more of a precaution than anything else but your sight will be fine. So don’t worry.”

He nodded, but he still had other questions. Daichi understood. 

“Everyone’s fine,” he continued, “Kuroo called me. There was someone...Hinata, I think? I think he feels worse about this than you do. At least, that’s what I got over the phone. But you could always find him later and talk to him if you want.” His fingers rasped over the bandages across Koushi’s eyes as he pushed his hair away from his forehead. “But right now I need you to relax and only think about getting better.”

Koushi opened his mouth and managed to rasp something very feeble, something that sounded a lot like ‘ _No_ ’. 

“Let me take care of you,” Daichi said, in the kind of voice that Koushi knew he wouldn’t be able to argue with easily even if he was in better condition. So he let himself get taken care of, as much as it made him uncomfortable. At least his hospital stay didn’t last very long at all - they’d mostly kept him because he’d passed out and wanted to make sure he was fine. But his other burns were minor and since he had Daichi, the doctor felt better about letting him go home. It was weird, trying to understand what was happening when he couldn’t see any of it, getting distracted by other sounds he’d never heard before, people’s voices, traffic, machine noises. Relying on Daichi felt weird too. He didn’t want to be a burden. 

No matter how many times Daichi told him not to panic, that he was there and holding on to him, and no matter how many times Koushi squeezed Daichi’s arm, he couldn't relax. Part of it was not being able to see, but he really did trust Daichi so it wasn't that much of a problem. Most of it was that Koushi had always had an issue relying on people even when he really, desperately needed help. It wasn't that he didn't want to be taken care of. It was that he still had trouble coming to terms with the fact that someone wanted to take care of him without expecting anything in return. Sometimes, he unintentionally hurt Daichi’s feelings and that always made him feel worse. 

“I'm sorry,” Koushi whispered. They were on the train then, Koushi’s arm hooked around Daichi's elbow. He was wearing Daichi's sweatshirt with the hood pulled up, and he'd stopped shivering a while ago. There was someone in their train car having a very obnoxious phone conversation so he didn't think Daichi would hear. That was kind of the point.

But Daichi sighed, a little frustratedly. “Suga, there’s nothing to apologize for. It’s not like I’m forced to do this.”

“I know,” Koushi whimpered, feeling worse for irritating Daichi, for being annoying, for not being able to help the fact that he kept needing to apologize.

Daichi didn’t say anything after that, and Koushi didn’t know how to interpret the silence when he couldn’t see Daichi’s face. And since he was still wracked with guilt, the longer Daichi stayed silent, the more Koushi panicked, the louder the jostling of the train sounded, the more it seemed like the woman on the phone was laughing at him instead of at a joke on the other end of her call, the more it felt as if the other eyes in the carriage were glaring at him for daring to be there with his hideously bandaged face- 

The train stopped again and Koushi jumped even though the stop wasn’t particularly sudden. Every movement he made felt too big and loud and out of place and he was trying so hard not to panic right there on the train in front of everyone. Daichi took Koushi’s hand and carefully guided him out onto the platform. Out there was worse; outside of the walls of the train, he felt exposed. No one was looking at him, he tried to convince himself. No one had even noticed that he was there. 

The walk home from the train station felt three hours longer than it should have been. At certain moments, even without being able to see, he could tell where they were by the way the road curved and which turns they took, but he still felt lost and tired and afraid. They were overtaken by people on bicycles and a car or two, but for the most part, they were alone. He focused on the sound of their feet and their breathing, steady from months of practice walking the same long, steep roads. 

By the time Daichi was unlocking their front door, Koushi was practically vibrating with nerves. He hadn’t realized until now how much his faux confidence relied on him being able to actually see his surroundings, just how much he hated not being able to fend for himself, how _loud_ the world was, how much it _stank_ of perfume and powder and stale sweat, stress and greasy food, the click of heels on the pavement, the chill summer breeze, the gravel through worn shoes, the dead silence that formed a wide, gaping black hole between him and Daichi-

“Koushi.”

Koushi’s thoughts stuttered but didn’t quite stop- he couldn’t remember walking inside or closing the door behind them or anything between the keys and the lock and stumbling over the lip of the door and Daichi’s hands on either side of his face-

Daichi pressed his lips at the corner of Koushi’s mouth, gently, as if Koushi were only spun glass.

“We’re home,” Daichi murmured, low and soothing and close enough that Koushi could feel Daichi’s lips move against his mouth. “Breathe.”

He still felt like breath was caught in his chest somewhere but he still slowly brought his arms around Daichi’s waist and tried to focus on the kisses Daichi left along his jaw, slow and soft and so careful, like he had all the time in the world. Like nothing could be more important. When Daichi reached his ear, he told Koushi that he loved him. 

Koushi let himself be led to their bedroom and patiently sat on the edge of the bed while Daichi helped him undress and change into a soft t-shirt and pants. As he searched around for the edge of the blanket so he could pull them over his head, he was a little surprised to find Daichi’s hands already there, climbing into bed to face him, and then realized it was because it had been far too long since they’d gone to bed at the same time. Weeks, maybe. Months? 

“I’ve missed you,” Daichi said and maybe he slipped his hand around Koushi’s waist but he wasn’t paying attention. “I can’t remember the last time we spent time together.” He paused. “I hate it.”

“Me too,” Koushi agreed. His hand was caught somewhere in the sheets and it was frustrating him. Daichi gently untangled his fingers. “Do you think one day it’ll be worth it? All the stress and not being able to see each other and...getting spit on by angry middle-aged women with lattes and massive egos?”

Daichi laughed then and Koushi fell in love with him all over again, so hard and fast that it hurt. It was the first good sort of pain that day. 

“Maybe,” Daichi said. Koushi’s hand was traveling up Daichi’s shoulder now. “I hope so.”

“Didn’t you have work today?” Koushi asked, but he sounded a lot less concerned than he was trying to be.

“I told them it was an emergency,” he said. Koushi’s hand trailed along Daichi’s jaw and the faint stubble growing there. Close. “Which it is,” Daichi said before they could get into an argument. “Getting carried off in an ambulance counts as an emergency.”

“Is it?” Koushi said absently. There. His fingers rested on Daichi’s mouth, so his fingertips tingled when Daichi spoke. 

“Of course it is,” Daichi said, exasperated. He went on for a while, talking about how Koushi needed to worry about himself more, that he was important and needed to maybe be a little more selfish if that’s what it took, and how was he supposed to relax if he couldn’t trust Koushi to take care of himself? And maybe there was something about how he could afford to take a break sometimes but Koushi never let him finish because he’d pressed his lips against Daichi’s with far more force than he ever had before. 

Koushi had expected him to be at least a little more shocked about being interrupted mid-sentence but a split-second later Daichi’s hands had tightened around his waist and he was kissing back, hot and open-mouthed and _desperate_ . Koushi carded his hands through Daichi’s hair, hooked his leg over Daichi’s waist and moaned into his mouth, unintentionally bucking his hips as Daichi licked into his mouth, over his tongue, bit down on his lip and _pulled_ ; and soon it was nothing more than heat and frantic breathing, until they both had to stop because they couldn’t _breathe._

He wanted more, so much more, but the painkillers he'd taken earlier were starting to wear off and he knew Daichi would be too anxious about hurting him. But he was okay, like this. It had been too long. 

“I missed you,” Daichi sighed again, relieved and tired and hoarse and exactly how Koushi felt. It was a satisfied kind of sigh now. Relaxed. Koushi loved him this way. 

“I missed you too,” Koushi whispered. He tucked his head under Daichi’s chin, huddled closer into his heat and wished - not for the first time - that it could always be like this. 

But maybe one day, he hoped. One day it could.

**Author's Note:**

> I still read every single comment on my fics and get an email every morning about new kudos so I just want to say that I appreciate every single one of you. Stay safe out there.


End file.
